Only had time to glance through your photos.
Regular analog phones are 1 twisted wire pair (two wires, Cat 3). RJ11 jacks (2 pairs).
Dual analog phone lines and some digital phone systems are 2 twisted pairs. RJ14.
Some digital phone systems are 3 twisted pairs. RJ25.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registered_jack#RJ11.2C_RJ14.2C_RJ25_wiring_details
RJ11, RJ14, RJ25 are the same size jacks, and slightly smaller than ethernet RJ45 jacks. So you can tell just by looking at a socket if it's ethernet. (You can plug a phone jack into an ethernet socket. It's not very stable, but it works.)
Ethernet (Cat 5, 5e, 6) is 4 twisted pairs (8 wires). Cat 5/6 can substitute for Cat 3. Cat 3 cannot substitute for Cat 5/6.
I'm not really sure what the Cat 5 PS is, but It's possible that PS = phone system, and the house was wired for a 3 twisted pair digital phone system, and it was just convenient to use Cat 5 cable since it's more common and has 4 twisted pairs. Unscrew the wall plate and confirm that all 4 twisted pairs are wired to the socket. If they are, then you should be good to use them for ethernet. If one pair was left unwired, then it's relatively easy to buy the RJ45 keystones and a 110 punch tool and rewire all 4 pairs yourself.
Analog phones can be wired in series. That is, all the phones jacks in the house can be wired together to each other. You take the solid color input wire, and connect all the solid color output wires for each room to it. You take the striped input wire, and connect all the striped output wires for each room to it. So the same input signal goes to all the output jacks simultaneously.
Digital phones and ethernet need to be wired individually. They have to connect to each other via some sort of switch (or in the old days, a hub), so all connections are point to point. It can't be point to multipoint like with analog phone lines. It's a bit blurry in the pics, but it looks like all 4 pairs were wired. So regardless of whether it was set up for digital phone or ethernet, it should work for ethernet. You may have to get creative with rearranging wires and maybe buying a switch and mounting it near the panel, but it should be possible to make it work.
I can't tell from the pics where the bundle of blue cables in the front go. And where the bundle of blue cables in the back go. I'm guessing the blue cables in the front lead down to the "distribution hub", and the blue cables in the back come from the same distribution hub? And (from the back) the yellow and white twisted pair cables in the blue sockets head to the individual rooms?
If so, then it's wired for analog phone service. Looking at it from the front, the blue cable connects to the two blue sockets across to the right (could've been up to all 4 blue sockets, but only 2 are wired per row). The distribution hub is duplexing the single blue cable into two blue cables, so you can plug in two separate phone lines and the hub combines them into a single cable. Depending on how the distribution hub is doing it, that may actually make ethernet not work. But I think the idea was that you could have multiple analog phone lines coming into the house, and pick which two each room got.
If the white and yellow cables head to the rooms, then that's really all you need. You can unplug the blue cables in the front of the distribution hub (might want to label them first in case you ever decide to use them for phone lines). Then get an ethernet switch and plug the blue cables into it.
You may want to buy a RJ45 wiring tester so you don't go crazy trying to figure out which cable leads to which room, and if it's wired correctly. Just put the big unit into constant test mode, plug in one of the blue cables in front. Then go into the rooms with the smaller unit and plug it into each socket. When you find the right socket, the lights will go on 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 in sequence.
http://www.amazon.com/TRENDnet-Network-Cable-Tester-TC-NT2/dp/B0000AZK08
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